Latest Contact Center Best Practices

Business process outsourcing (BPO), or the contracting of certain tasks and roles to a third-party service provider, is growing exponentially, projected to reach a $209.4B worldwide market value by 2017. Supporting a wide range of industries for a number of different services, BPO for the call center sector is expected to grow tremendously over the next few years as businesses look to outsource their telemarketing and customer support functions to place a greater focus on their core competencies. And as demand for call center outsourcing continues to grow, these BPOs must ensure they have the technology and resources in place to effectively meet the growing needs of their current and potential clients—but many are still running their call centers on outdated, on-premise technology that is limiting their ability to efficiently manage their customer base.

Cloud-only contact center services will have a tough time meeting the needs of today’s Enterprise businesses.

Why?

Because a cloud-only service cannot meet the security and compliance requirements of enterprise customers.

While the cloud is real, the role of on-premise is not disappearing. Sensitive customer data, call recordings, and financial material must remain behind a company's firewall. A cloud-only call center play can only go so far.

As technology becomes more affordable and customer expectations continue to rapidly evolve, there has been a noticeable shift within organizations as it relates to departmental technology spend. A role once assigned to CIOs and IT personnel, a group focused primarily on critical operational requirements, the responsibility of purchasing and maintaining the latest technology has fallen into the lap of those who play a more integral role in the customer experience—“the business”. Who exactly is “the business” comprised of? Middle management, i.e. contact center directors, marketing and sales executives, VPs, and customer service managers, to name a few. Forrester Research Group reports that 70% of technology spending in North American companies of more than 250 employees is either “business” led, or heavily influenced by “business”, a number that has grown significantly in recent years. And 50% of business managers, directors, and vice presidents are increasing their departmental budgets on technology products and services over the next 12 months.

The rise of the Internet and expansion of communication channels have given today’s consumers far greater power to explore alternative product/service options, putting customer experience at the forefront of purchasing decisions. In fact by 2020, customer experience is expected to overtake price and product as a brand’s competitive differentiator. And according to Dimension Data’s 2015 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking report, which surveyed 901 contact centers across 72 countries, 75% of contact centers recognize service as a competitive differentiator (up 18% over the past two years), and 57% say they can relate improving customer experience levels to revenue and profit growth. But despite the growing effort towards improving customer service to better meet rising consumer expectations, customer satisfaction levels have decreased for the fourth year in a row—which begs the question, where are businesses missing the mark when it comes to their service delivery?

In today’s business world, “the cloud” has become a buzzword used by many to emphasize technological flexibility and mobility, in short the ability to access your data from just about anywhere. While there are those who see the use of the cloud as a way to increase productivity and decrease costs, others view the cloud as a risk when it comes to security.

So what is the cloud? When you upload a document where does it go truly?

Unlike the misty clouds up in the sky, “the cloud” in terms of business is actually nothing more than many computers housed in massive warehouses all over the world: remote servers. Seems simple enough. But what is so buzzworthy about this concept and what are the benefits of using these remote “cloud” servers vs. your own?